The Navy Built a Ship That Looks Like Noah's Ark
The U.S. Navy has taken delivery of a brick-shaped vessel known as a berthing barge.
Berthing barges are designed to house sailors when their ships are laid up.
The ship, which looks like Noah’s Ark, is headed to Japan to join the U.S. 7th Fleet.
One of the most unusual “ships” in the U.S. Navy is headed from Mississippi to Japan. APL 67, a berthing barge, provides accommodations to sailors when their own warships are temporarily uninhabitable. The barge is unarmed, unpowered, and will probably never leave port.
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The gray-white barge is 267 feet long and 68.7 feet wide, and rises about four stories above the water. The floating, largely featureless vessel, draws comparisons to Noah’s Ark. (The Ark, however, was notably bigger at 525 feet long by 87 feet wide.) Seapower says the ship can accommodate 74 officers and 537 enlisted personnel.
VT Halter Marine in Pascagoula, Mississippi built the unpowered barge, which is on its way to Naval Base San Diego and will eventually travel across the Pacific to Fleet Activity Yokosuka, home of the 7th Fleet.
Think of APL 67 like a floating hotel. Sailors will usually stay on the barge for short periods of time, while the ship they are normally assigned to is undergoing maintenance. If a ship goes into drydock at Yokosuka, the Navy doesn’t have to hunt down 300 hotel rooms for the crew. The barge could also be towed to a new location to provide living quarters.
While the barge lacks engines, sensors, and weapons, it does have accommodations that allow it to seat 56 officers and 228 enlisted personnel at a time in the barge’s mess. It also features “washrooms, classrooms, lounges, laundry facilities, offices, a barber shop, a fitness center and a medical facility."
The Navy has several such barges worldwide, and APL 67 is the first of four being provided under contract with VT Halter Marine.
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